Earlier this week, Google launched a daily deals offer on its homepage. The company has been experimenting with daily deals coupons in major U.S. cities for some time now and certainly made it an official pert of their search engine on Wednesday when it went live on Google.com. The deals market has been a challenging […]

Earlier this week, Google launched a daily deals offer on its homepage. The company has been experimenting with daily deals coupons in major U.S. cities for some time now and certainly made it an official pert of their search engine on Wednesday when it went live on Google.com.

The deals market has been a challenging one to enter, as reports indicated the industry lost 28 players last month, keeping Groupon and Living Social. Yipit, a research firm reported that 60% of internet users and consumers feel as though the daily deals market is overcrowded and too confusing to navigate. Facebook withdrew their “Facebook Deals” last month.

True as these facts may be, Google did generate 96% of its revenue last year from advertising that appear alongside their search results. The ultimate advertising board. With the news of Google now entering the market by placing daily deals on their homepage, users may feel confident that this is one major player that will be sticking around for a while!

Ever since Groupon filed their S-1 filing with the SEC back in early June, investors and social media experts have been wondering when exactly the official IPO date will be released. Groupon, the “deals and discounts” website, was offered a $6 billion takeover from Google in December 2010, clearly rejecting it because they feel as […]

Ever since Groupon filed their S-1 filing with the SEC back in early June, investors and social media experts have been wondering when exactly the official IPO date will be released.Groupon, the “deals and discounts” website, was offered a $6 billion takeover from Google in December 2010, clearly rejecting it because they feel as though they can grow tremendously in the online deals arena.

The reported IPO is anticipated to raise $750 million on the Street.The company is valued at $30 billion, although with recent competition stemming from Facebook deals (released in March), and the company still has yet to return a profit.In 2010, the company posted a net loss of $413.4 million, and a net loss of $113.9 million during Q1, 2011.Will investors pay attention to the financial data that makes Groupon a questionable investment?Most likely not.When LinkedIn went public on May 19 at an open price of $45 per share, it sky rocketed to over $105 a share during the first day of trading.At one point, the market value was 641 times their net income, which would have placed Apple’s valuation at $3 trillion!

Investors are clearly excited with social media IPO’s, often ignoring the fundamentals of the company.Groupon may be in that same conversation.The company is facing intense competition from Facebook Deals and other smaller firm deals sites, which explains the slowdown in revenue.

The official date has not been released yet, although investors believe it will be within the next 2 months.The much anticipated Facebook IPO is scheduled for April, 2012.

]]>http://www.webimax.com/blog/social-media/awaiting-the-groupon-ipo/feed0Social Media is All the Rage, but is it a Viable Investment?http://www.webimax.com/blog/ken-wisnefski/social-media-is-all-the-rage-but-is-it-a-viable-investment
http://www.webimax.com/blog/ken-wisnefski/social-media-is-all-the-rage-but-is-it-a-viable-investment#commentsMon, 23 May 2011 14:10:00 +0000http://www.webimax.com/blog/uncategorized/social-media-is-all-the-rage-but-is-it-a-viable-investmentSocial Media is All the Rage, but is it a Viable Investment? was originally posted on the WebiMax SEO Blog

Kenneth C. Wisnefski, serial web Entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of WebiMax, the #1 rated SEO firm in the United States and Australia, discusses the success of social media and the recent IPO of such firms. “LinkedIn, the business to business answer to Facebook has seen rampant growth in the short term due to some […]

“LinkedIn, the business to business answer to Facebook has seen rampant growth in the short term due to some very well planned strategic monetization programs that have been put in place”, discussed Wisnefski.

“Its immediate rise in value suggests investors are hungry for “new media” stocks and are more focused on the hype that the pure valuation”.

As part of marketing strategies, LinkedIn is often not utilized to a great degree and its growth has seemed to be more outside of the U.S. than within.

“Caution exists, however, due to the fact that the company seems have already peaked.While all monetization areas have seemingly been put in place, I ask “where is the growth potential”?

Turning our focus to Facebook (who plans their IPO in April 2012), they represent seemingly the gem or all upcoming IPOs. Since its inception, Facebook has gained massive traction over the past few years and has ingrained itself in to our daily lives.

“Its sheer volume suggests the opportunity for further revenue growth but it’s privacy concerns raise questions whether it can truly grow at the rate that is anticipated to meet or exceed its lofty valuation”, discusses Wisnefski. “For consumer based businesses, Facebook has become an integral part of marketing campaigns. The major discussion around these campaigns is the notion that the demographic focusing that can be done allows users to market to the very core sector they wish to reach”, concludes Wisnefski.

The caveat to this has been the fact that unlike Google’s monetization through Google AdWords, advertising on Facebook is more of a “passive” branding effort as people banter with their friends rather than “proactively” searching out terms on Google that provide a more actionable response.

“Additionally, Facebook has value to clients in the business to consumer space but misses the mark with clients in the business to business space, which has been a huge source of revenue for Google. Privacy concerns aside, Facebook is poised to be the biggest IPO since Google, however the growth will slow down at some point, but more opportunities for monetization will occur. I think one can clearly expect that Facebook will far exceed the rampant explosion that LinkedIn has recently seen”, concludes Wisnefski.

Small businesses have found Groupon to be a true windfall of opportunity.

“Consumer based businesses have told me that Groupon has provided them with an opportunity to gain new customers at a very rapid rate of return. The key to Groupon has been that savvy businesses understand that their initial campaigns will likely end up being nearly break even efforts by the time they pay for the actual advertisement, but the ability to retain customers beyond that initial campaign is where the true value lies”, states Wisnefski.

With its ability to focus on very specific demographic areas and a track record of success, Groupon has many additional areas of potential revenue generation and would seem to be the best overall value of all the upcoming IPOs.

Twitter announced their IPO is scheduled for some time in 2012.Their growth has seemed to slow down considerably and its attempts at monetization have actually been less fruitful.

“Niche industries have evolved such as sites like Ad.ly that leverage Twitter to promote their celebrity endorsements but unfortunately have little bearing on the actual revenue that Twitter generates. My expectation is that opportunities for additional revenue streams will surface in the near future and that Twitter will become a very strong opportunity as it expands”, states Wisnefski.

Twitter has seemingly always played second fiddle to Facebook but in the IPO world, playing second fiddle to the expected boom that Facebook will see, isn’t a bad thing!

“It is also clear that investors are hopeful that Social Media will run a similar course that Google has but I would be quick to caution this. So many companies rely on Google and this has been evidenced by the recent drop off of Demand Media, which as Google changed their algorithms, their traffic and overall value has suffered immensely”, concludes Wisnefski.

Google’s interest in Social Media has also been evident by their utilization of aspects of Facebook and Twitter postings and tweets directly in to their search results. While none of the companies in the Social Media space have the overall long term outlook that Google has, all of them demonstrate the next wave of investing.

Since its inception in 2008, WebiMax has established themselves as a global leader in search engine optimization, social media, web design, pay-per-click management, reputation management, and e-commerce solutions.With 2011 revenue projected to top a record $15 million, the company is well positioned for their scheduled IPO in 2015.They have over 150 employees, 8 U.S. based, and 4 International offices.Visit (http://www.webimax.com) for more information.